Through the Church Fathers: January 13

Here is the podcast description, formatted exactly to your rules and covering the three readings only (Polycarp, Augustine, Aquinas).

The Christian life is shaped by discipline, desire, and the nature of God Himself. Today’s readings move from Polycarp’s pastoral call to endurance and moral vigilance, through Augustine’s anguished confession of disordered love and youthful lust, and finally into Aquinas’s careful distinction between essence and existence in God—where we are reminded that God is not merely one being among others, but Being itself. Together, these readings trace the movement from ethical formation, to interior conversion, to theological clarity, showing how the early Church understood holiness as grounded in both lived obedience and the very simplicity of God’s being (Matthew 24:13; 1 Corinthians 7:32–35; Exodus 3:14).

Readings:

Polycarp, The Epistle to the Philippians, Chapters 6–10

Augustine, The Confessions, Book 2, Chapter 1 (Sections 3–4)

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 3, Article 3

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